Loading summary
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Insurance isn't one size fits all. That's why customers have enjoyed Progressive's name your price tool for years now. With the name your price tool, you tell them what you want to pay and they'll show you options that fit your budget. So whether you're picking out your first policy or just looking for something that works better for you and your family, they make it easy to see your options. Visit progressive.com, find a rate that works for you with the name your price tool. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law
VRBO Announcer
Get a jump on next summer with vrbo's early booking deals. Don't wait to claim your dream summer spot, whether that includes a good porch swing or a poolside lounger. When you book early, you get the best places at the best prices. But back to poolside loungers. With vrbo, you don't have to reserve any loungers. They're all yours. In fact, the whole private home is yours. Book with early booking deals and you can lounge around all summer long. However you please book with vrbo with vrbocare.
Joy Reid
Help is always ready before, during and after your stay. We've planned for the plot twists, so support is always available because a great trip starts with peace of mind.
Interviewer / Host
Joining me today on IHIP News. It's a total treat. It is, of course, my very good friend Joy Reid, host of the Joy Reid show. Because on our side, yes, we support each other, we lift each other up. All of those people in the right wing media ecosystem. Delicious cannibalism, I must say.
Joy Reid
No, I mean, they're like putting salt on each other and just having a taste and a bite. Everything. What's wrong with them? They don't even like each other.
Interviewer / Host
I know. Joy, I want to get your take on this. Fox News invited a focus group of independent voters and it didn't go very well. Let's play the clip.
Focus Group Participant
Well, honestly, what has been holding me back is I feel like the change that I was expecting from the president himself. I don't feel in my everyday life which is concerning to me. I still feel obviously that prices are very, very, very high if you're going to the grocery store or just in general because inflation still exists. Unfortunately, now we have the higher gas prices which really hurt, you know, everyday people in their pocket. And I've voted my entire life. And the frustration right now is it's
Interviewer / Host
just unbelievable because Joy, part of me
Joy Reid
wonders if people who speak like that young lady were in a coma during Donald Trump's first term or during his entire lifetime in which he's bankrupted businesses and been a terrible businessman and then pretended to be a good businessman on the Apprentice. And then part of me says, you know what? Let me be gracious and give grace. I think most people don't pay attention to politics. I generally think people just don't pay attention. And they knew they were hurting economically during Biden and so they didn't really look deeper into. They didn't, they sort of didn't access their own memories of the first Trump term. They just voted against what they had.
Interviewer / Host
You know, and how much of this should we attribute to Democratic messaging? And let me give you an example. My entire life, I was born in 1974. Republican presidents always go down like this. Reduce taxes, increase debt, start war, market crash. Democrat comes in and fixes it. Next Republican comes in, does the exact same thing. The only thing that Trump has done is he's done it a lot faster. Yeah, they have propagandized the Republicans so well. We are such good caretakers.
Joy Reid
Fiscal responsibility.
Interviewer / Host
We are so. We are so good at business. We support the troops. Meanwhile, they send them out in all these crazy ass wars all the time. How much of a burden should the Democrats have for constantly playing defense and not offense and defining these liars and complete arsonists, American arsonists that the Republican Party has become?
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean, every Republican president in my adult lifetime has presided over a recession, with the exception of George Herbert Walker Bush, who's the only one who raised taxes. Every other Republican, all of them, Bush, Reagan. I mean, I think inflation was like 14% when I was a kid under Reagan. They always have a recession. But the problem for the Democrats is that the Republican brand is very simple tax cuts. Their brand is tax cuts. And so when people see a Republican, the first thing they think is tax cuts. They forget about the recessions. They forget about the fact that they crash the economy every time because they cut taxes for the super rich. They spend like drunken sailors. And then they know a Democrat's going to come along and be the cleanup woman, the cleanup man and clean it up. And then Americans have such short memories that as soon as the Democrat, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden clean up the mess, they go, oh, great, now we can put another Republican in and get more tax cuts.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah. And don't you think right now the psychological soil is completely primed with how grotesque these oligarchs are? They're just like Jeff Bezos and Lawrence Sanchez are some nasty ass fascists, in my opinion. Elon Musk is a nasty fascist white supremacist that the Democrats need to play offense and start this. Oh, no, it's going to be a tax break for the working class. But these billionaires, we simply cannot afford them.
Joy Reid
Right.
Interviewer / Host
We cannot afford to have a billionaire class like this. Don't you think it would be better if we took offense? I feel like the Democrats are always playing defense.
Joy Reid
They're always playing defense, and also they mix the message. We can't say Jeff Bezos is an evil fascist, but also we're going to chill with him at the Met Gala. Let's go to his wedding. And look, I think we ask too much of our celebrities that they shun the billionaires, but the messaging is so mixed. Is this guy a bad guy, or is he like our friend in fashion? And so I think that because there's not a willingness to inoculate the culture from these people, these people insinuate themselves into the culture, and then we don't know what we stand for. And the Democratic Party doesn't have a brand. Right. Their brand is they're the scolds. They're the ones who are telling you, you didn't get the pronouns right. You. You didn't do this. Right. They're the scold brand, and people just don't like it. And. And so the Republicans are like the fun brand. They're like the absentee dad that comes around once every month and takes you out to the, you know, the Disney dad. Disney. They're the Disney dad. They're the weekend dad, and Republicans are the mom that's telling you got to do your homework. And that'. Branding. And so I don't know how they get around that, especially if they're not offering proactively something positive, which is why somebody like a momdani is the kind of Democrat who can win.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
Because he's not stuck to the Democratic brand. He's not saying he. His brand is Mamdani. His brand is affordability guy. Yeah. His brand is change.
Interviewer / Host
And I thought the way he played the Met Gala was perfect.
Joy Reid
Perfect.
Interviewer / Host
I'm not gonna go, but I'm gonna lift up all of these workers, garment workers. I mean, just brilliant. Okay, I want to play a stunning moment for you from Trump's judicial nominees and we know from other autocrats. Like, let's just look at Victor Orbon. They sunk their claws so deep with party loyalists into the judiciary, into the media. Here is Senator Chris Coons interviewing lifetime appointments for federal judges. Play the clip.
Senator Chris Coons
President Trump eligible to run for president again. In 2028, senator with it, without considering all the facts and looking at everything depending on what the situation is, this, to me, strikes as more of a hypothetical, of something that could be not a hypothetical. Has President Trump been elected president twice? President Trump has been certified the President of the United States two times. Is he eligible to run for a third term under our Constitution? I would have to review the. All I need to tell you is the language of the constitutional amendment that makes it clear that no, he is not eligible to run for a third term. Anybody else brave enough to say that the Constitution of the United States prevents President Trump from seeking a third term? Anybody willing to apply the Constitution by its plain language in the 22nd Amendment? Nobody?
Interviewer / Host
Okay, this is stunning. These men wouldn't go an inch in a meritocracy. No, not an inch.
Joy Reid
Not an inch. And it's not. The idea of meritocracy is as Orwellian as the idea that Republicans are fiscally responsible, right? They just say words that are meaningless and then they reverse the meaning. These same nominees for the judiciary could not admit that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election. They can't do it because they're still performing for an audience of one. And the fact that attorneys, people who want to be lifetime appointed judges, can't Simply quote the 22nd Amendment and say, of course not. He's been president for two terms, he can't be president again. They can't do it because they know they'll be punished by a truth social post and then they won't be able to be judges because the cowards in the United States Senate on the Republican side, plus the one from Pennsylvania who pretends to be a Democrat. Right, won't vote for them.
Interviewer / Host
Right?
Joy Reid
So the reality is, in order to get the job, they have to debase themselves. Republicans are supposed men who live on their knees. Not a single one of them is a man. They are quislings, they are cowards. They are supine, pathetic worms who pretend to be manly men.
Interviewer / Host
I completely agree. And then Trump just said this right after these hearings. Here he was yesterday. Stunning. Play the clip.
Senator Chris Coons
When I get out of office in, let's say eight or nine years from now, I'll be able to use it.
Interviewer / Host
I'll be able to use it myself. Pause it right there, Kylie. Look at all these crusty ass people laughing and applauding for what he just said. What's your take on all that?
Joy Reid
I mean, this is what it's like to live in an autocracy, right? Everyone in Saddam Hussein's Iraq had to laugh and applaud when Saddam Hussein made a joke. And even if the joke was about killing their family, if they don't comply. And these people are performing autocracy in America. And so whatever Donald Trump says is funny, whatever he says is true. The only truth is what's on, quote, unquote, truth social. That's why he named it that, so that people would be forced to say Donald Trump truth. And so everyone goes along. Everyone has to call the Gulf of America. Everyone has to pretend that there's a such a thing as the Department of War and that Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of War. You know, that's qualified.
Interviewer / Host
Right.
Joy Reid
And also that he's qualified to even have the job of Secretary of Defense.
Interviewer / Host
Right?
Joy Reid
This is a joke. We are, we are, we are a. We are a cosmic international joke right now. People look at somebody like, you know, Todd Blanche and the rest of the world is laughing at us. They look at a Kristi Noem and the job that she used to have as Secretary of Homeland Security and they laugh at us. Pete Hegseth is a, an international punchline, and so is Donald Trump. But inside of this country, inside of the Republican Party, they have to pretend that Donald Trump is a statesman. They have to pretend that he's intelligent and brilliant and a great leader. Because if they don't, they get punished by a truth social post. That's pathetic.
Interviewer / Host
Joy, what do you make of his approval ratings are at 30, 32%.
Joy Reid
I saw 25 in one poll.
Interviewer / Host
That's better. That's good news. So we need to get it down into the teens. Yeah, but so you have these abysmal polling numbers at the same time. Our counterparts, the propagandists in the right wing media ecosystem, they've jumped off the Trump train. They have seen that this man is a dementia duck. He is in his last term. It's a weekend at Bernie's presidency. They're trotting this around everywhere. He's fallen asleep left and right. Tucker Carlson has gone full tilt off the Trump train. Megan Kelly, full tilt. Joe Rogan. Still, he likes to have his foot in both because he just doesn't believe it in anything. A total nihilist. What do you make of. We're starting to see fissures for the first time in 11 years. We saw a glimpse right after January 6th, and then the former speaker of the House went down and kissed the ring. And then that was over with Fox News. Everybody followed suit. But now we're starting to See? Real fissures. What's your take on all that?
Joy Reid
Yeah, they smell blood in the water. Right. Donald Trump has the giant kangals that look like they're going to explode. He's got bruises all over his hands. He's physically not well. He's mentally and cognitively gone. And he's gonzo. Like he's just out to lunch, wandering around, staring at the invisible ballroom. At this point, he is. They know it, but they also. They see now the potential power of the presidency. I think one of the most dangerous moments in an autocracy is when the aging autocrat is potentially on his way out, but he's left behind the scent of the absolute power. They. We've now seen what the presidency can do. It can make you a billionaire six times over. You can steal in the open, and John Roberts will protect you, because John Roberts is a monarchist corrupt asshole who just wants to do his own corruption. The Supreme Court is like, shit, we're doing corruption, too. We don't want a Congress that's going to investigate us. Right. Keep these people in forever. These motherfuckers are staying in for life. They're going to be a Republican majority till we're dead. Because we're just going to do corruption with y'. All.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
And so, you know, you're protected by a corrupt court. You know that the quizlings in the Congress are not going to do shit. They're not going to do anything. And so the Tuckers of the world, they're like, we've got a supine Congress that's obedient. We've got a corrupt judiciary as all the way to the top. John Roberts and those six, they're never going to stop the corruption. I want to be president. They're all like, shit, I want that job. And so now everyone smells blood in the water and they want the power Trump has.
Interviewer / Host
You think Tucker's going to run?
Joy Reid
I think I. I wouldn't be surprised. I'll put it that way. If Tucker doesn't run. I think Joe Kent sees it. Marjorie Taylor Green sees it. Oh, yeah. Everyone who's speaking up against Trump now and trying to establish themselves as this suddenly, suddenly caring about the Palestinian people, out of nowhere, they suddenly care so deeply.
Interviewer / Host
Human rights and children.
Joy Reid
Human rights and children.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah, children.
Joy Reid
You know, and they're Christians. Oh, of course. Kill children. All of a sudden, they give a damn. Yeah. Because they see that that is the path to that power Trump has and the money.
Interviewer / Host
So in that, you have these people that say, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, all of a sudden they're just, you know, all about universal human rights. But I have heard crickets about the following. Last week, the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights act in this broke yesterday. Pop this up. The Supreme Court Monday fast tracked its decision in Louisiana versus Calais, a move that clears the way for Louisiana to move forward with redrawing its congressional map even as an election is already underway. So these all of a sudden, human rights activists, arbiters of democracy, crickets from them on this joy, speak to me not only as a person in media, but also as a black woman, how seeing this happen. Yeah. And knowing that, you know, Obama there, that was a huge progress. We elected a black president. But knowing that there will probably be a white lash. I've heard from a lot of black people, they knew, oh, we're going to get it for this at some point. Speak to that. Because I think it's really important to highlight that that fear that a lot of black Americans always feel just below the surface. And then knowing the Supreme Court did this with a black man for this.
Joy Reid
And I think, well, you know, a black man with a little bit of a asterisk. Just saying, we don't blame him. Yeah, yeah, he's not with us anymore.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
And I'll say, and just by the way, just to kind of revise slightly what I just said earlier, the whole issue of. And it's connected the whole issue of Palestine, which is something I've been passionate about since I was a kid, the fact that these people are play acting to care about a literal genocide and a literal genocide that has spread to Lebanon, which is a real thing that's happening and that they're performing sort of a performative outrage about that. But right here in our own country, the massacre of the voting rights of 13% of the population and then if you want to include Hispanics, you know, another 15% of the population, they could give a damn because their path to power involves continuing to suppress the votes of people like me. And the fact that John Roberts, who as a 26 year old man arrived in the Reagan Justice Department 16 years after the passage of the Voting Rights act and declared that it had done enough, he thought the Voting Rights act was finished, dead and done and unnecessary. In 1981, 16 years after his passage, and I think that's the piece that I sit with a lot is the time people think of the 60s and the 80s is so different. 65 and 80 is 15 years. He gets there in 16 years later and says, we don't need that shit anymore. As a young 26 year old man, he already thought it was over. And his life's work has been to repeal not just the Voting Rights act, but the 20th century. We have a Supreme Court that looks at the American century, the greatest century in this country's history, the 20th century in which we saw labor rights, child labor laws abolished, women acquire the right to vote, women acquire the right to contraception and abortion to determine our own fates. And the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, 100 years later, finally given the force of law through the Civil Rights act and the Voting Rights act, miracles in the 20th century. This court views that century as an abomination. And they've been setting out to repeal the 20th century ever since they've gotten a majority. And John Roberts is no different than Alito, who despises with an open hatred the 20th century and the Supreme Courts, including Thurgood Marshall being the first black justice that implemented those incredible or that certified those rights. They hate the idea of equality between you and me because you're a white woman who broke out of the kitchen and you are not home churning butter for your husband. And therefore you're an abomination. And I, as a black woman, a daughter of immigrants, the fact that I was able to go to Harvard, God forbid, break into that white male institution, the fact that I was able to make it that I can economically survive, the fact that I can vote, I'm an abomination. We're an abomination to that court. And they have decided they're going to dismantle everything good that was ever done to make this country great, to turn it back into the 19th century hell for people like you and me. And the fact that there's a black man that is a part of that drive to turn us backwards because he is so corrupt that he would trade every single black person in this country for the power and the baubles and the gifts and the vacations he gets in exchange makes him an abomination. And I, you know, I've been saying people have to stop calling him an Uncle Tom because Uncle Tom was actually a hero in Uncle Tom's Cabin. He actually sacrificed his life to save two black women who were running away. Clarence Thomas wouldn't sacrifice himself for a single black woman, maybe not even in his family. What he cares about is riches and baubles and hanging out with the guy with the Garden of Evil. And John Roberts cares only about dismantling the Voting Rights Act. He's been Obsessed with it since he was a young man and now he has the power to do it. And Barack, and the fact that they use Barack Obama's election, the miracle of this fundamentally black hating country electing a black president, the fact that that's their excuse to now essentially invalidate, invalidate all three of the Reconstruction amendments that made this country a livable place in theory for black people makes it even worse. They're literally twisting those amendments, turning them upside down and turning them against black people. Because they know that black people vote for the most progressive candidate who can win. They vote for more taxes on the super rich. They vote for universal education and universal healthcare. That's how black folks vote. We may be personally conservative, some of us, some people, we have a range of views that we vote very progressive. Yeah. And they hate it. And they hate us and they're letting us know they despise us. The last thing I'll add is that the churlish little nasty bitchy response from Samuel Alito to Justice Jackson when she dissented to them immediately implementing their Calais ruling in the middle of active elections and his little bitch ass response to her shows that he knows he's wrong. He knows what he's doing is evil, but he's willing to do evil in order to have the eternal corruption that's allowed under a Republican ruled Congress.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah, he is a bitch ass, there's no question. But I want to point out something that you just did that I think is a really important example. You sat down and linked our human rights. Me, a privileged white woman, and you, a privileged black woman. I mean you are now and you linked us. And this is something that a lot of people don't want to do. They don't want to link our destinies. And I think what you just did is so important because a lot of white women will carry water for the patriarchy and they're going to be the first to drown. And how you just pointed out that if they come after you, which you're going to be the first, that they go up, I'm right there. They just keep moving the goal post. So I thought that was such so important because I always am messaging to my audience when it comes to trans rights. You might not understand it, it might sound weird, but you cannot cede anybody's rights. This is America. It's a free country. It's none of your goddamn business. And if you give that up, the Democratic Party is flirting with, you know, throwing them under the bus. A lot of establishment candidates are flirting with Rowing our fellow citizens less than 0.01% of the population under the bus. And I always say, you can't do it because then they move the goal post and move the goalpost. So thank you for doing that. That was a really teachable moment of how we are all so interconnected. And Obama responded to the racist AI picture that Trump posted of him and former first lady Michelle Obama. Let's pop this up. Former president Barack Obama offered his take on President Trump posting an AI generated image. Let me get on to what Obama said. He said, I don't take personally. I mean, I'm always offended when my wife and kids get dragged into things because they didn't choose this. That's a line that even people whose politics I deeply reject, I would expect them to care about. I would never talk about somebody's family in that way. And so in this time period where all I hear is the left needs to tone down the rhetoric, I'm like, please, have you looked at Lysocial lately? I mean, it is a rage baiting, crime provoking manifesto. It's just. What's your take on Obama jumping into that?
Joy Reid
You know, it was interesting. I think it was Ta Nehisi Coates when President Obama, when Obama ran and he said that the reason that he was electable, he's the least angry black man in America. Right. He's the most gracious person there is. He's a far better Christian than I am because I'm like them, okay?
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
I'm angrier about this than he is because he's just a gracious dude. I mean, like, that is just who he is, that this is legit. Like, I remember when he was president, they would do these sort of behind the scenes where, you know, journalists could come in and sit with him. And I remember getting, you know, they go around the table and everybody gets asked question. And my question was about John Boehner and how John Boehner would just go, you, hell no, you can't and would do all that. And he said, you know, he just believed that he had to be performatively angry at him, but that he thought of him as just sort of a decent sort of, you know, cloth coat Republican who behind the scenes would do deals. And I'm like, do you really think that? And I'm like, I think he really thinks that, like he actually is just a gracious guy. Right, right. But I think he has the, the, he has the ability to occupy that space of graciousness. The rest of us can rage for Him. I was so disgusted by what they did and what Trump did, I should say, because it feeds into a trope that I think Trump believes. You know, Trump said that African countries are shitholes. Yeah. That black people can't run a country. And I think he believes a black man should never have run this country. He doesn't. He thinks that black people should just be athletes and entertainers and shut the fuck up. And he's offended that his country would elect this black man. And here he is, his first political job as President of the United States. And so he's convinced somehow that that's a meritocracy. Donald Trump is the least meritorious person that's ever been president. The least qualified, surrounded by the least qualified idiots that could possibly be in their jobs. RFK Jr qualified to do what? Get high on a public toilet? You know, like, what are these people who are raccoons? What is this? We're being governed by like a Saturday Night Live skit? This is embarrassing. And this, is that what they call meritocracy because in their mind just being a white man makes you qualified for shit, you know?
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
And so, you know, God bless Barack Obama. I'm glad that he's able to be gracious. I would love for them to interview Michelle and see if she said the same thing. Yeah, I suspect she wouldn't.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah. No, and I, and I, I agree with you. He's incredibly gracious. I think he's very emotionally involved.
Joy Reid
Yeah.
Interviewer / Host
And when I see people on my team that, that gracious, then I think I have to be triple mad. If he's letting it go and he's not going to be mad, then I have to carry that anger.
Joy Reid
That's right. On behalf his anger translators.
Interviewer / Host
Yes, exactly, exactly. Okay, there is this on the left we have the centrist versus the progressives versus the leftists. And there is this weeks long never ending campaign against Hassan Piker. And some have compared him, which I think is a total false equivalency to Nick Fuentes on the left and Hassan Piker. I think their biggest rub with him, if we were to hook them up to true serum in a polygraph, is Hassan Piker says accurately that Israel is an apartheid state, a terror state. He opposes genocide. He's for universal human rights. Now he stream, twitch streams eight, nine hours a day. Has he said some that you're kind of like? Yeah, and I have too. And I'm sure you have too. But generally all his North Star always goes back to this idea of universal human rights. And so you have third way and some other that are just having stage five meltdowns. And they recently did an op ed in another op ed. I think we're at like 20 now in USA today over the weekend and comparing him to Nick Fuentes. And I want to play with you a clip from the last 48 hours of something that Nick Fuentes says and trigger warning it is Nick Fuentes. So there are slurs in here, but I think it's important that we read that we allow it to be said unedited.
VRBO Support Announcer
Play the clip for already a non white country.
Joy Reid
Get a grip. Get real, bro. This is already. We already live in Mogadishu.
VRBO Support Announcer
We already live in Islamabad. Have you been outside la?
Joy Reid
Chicago, New York? We live in your hell.
Interviewer / Host
Okay, pop that back up, Kylie. And you see that, just the screenshot. You see that America first hat right there. Okay. Obviously he is an unrepentant disgusting racist who is rage baiting people. But he's getting a large audience. And Tucker Carlson and J.D. vance, the president United States had dinner with him. They, they do not say he can't be a part of our team. They run interference for him. That whole America first thing is going to hit really hard among the American electorate when a Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes and Marjorie Taylor Greene trot out and say we have spent X, Y, Z billions of dollars for Benjamin Netanyahu and for Israel. They have health care, they have a higher education. You don't have Jack Trump lied to you. It was in America first. And they also provide this exchange that a lot of white people like. And that is appetizing feasting on some just racism and then just the N word. Just, you know, here we are just back to where this, you know, it's like the early 80s when I heard it all the time.
Joy Reid
Right.
Interviewer / Host
You know, speak to this situation with Hassan our tent. And then the false equivalency from people that know better in comparing Hassan Piker to that performative piece of racist.
Joy Reid
Yeah, I mean it's, I think it's hilarious that the only thing Hassan Piker and Nick Fuentes have is that they're both relatively young. Like, I mean that's about it. They're in about the same age group. But yeah, it's interesting to me to watch even some like Black creators on YouTube clipping Nick Fuentes and they'll clip the parts where he decries the genocide in Gaza. Right. Just the same way they'll clip Tucker and people will send me clips of Tucker decrying the genocide in Gaza. And they don't clip the part where Tucker Carlson, who I just think is an older Nick Fuentes.
Interviewer / Host
Totally.
Joy Reid
Right.
Interviewer / Host
Nailed it.
Joy Reid
Right? Yeah. He's like junior Tucker, like totally is. And he's, you know, he's fairly, you know, coherent thinker, coherent speaker. He's similar to Tucker. And they don't clip the part where Tucker says that immigrants make the country dirtier. They don't clip that part because he also says that if you listen to Tucker long enough, he'll get to that part too, where non white immigrants are destroying America, which is also what Nick Fuentes believes. And Nick Fuentes is. He's someone who is trying to renormalize the idea of dropping the N bomb. Right. Of using the N word. Right. He uses the N word on a regular basis, which is like the craving of a lot of white conservatives.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
They feel like they're oppressed because they can't use the N word in public anymore.
Interviewer / Host
They do.
Joy Reid
They feel like that's oppression. Freedom of speech. And their main freedom of speech argument is they want to say the N word. They just really want to. They want to rap along to, like Jay Z when he says the N word. They want to say it.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
Okay. That's why they feel oppressed. The thing I find hilarious about Nick Fuentes, though, is his core argument is that white people are inherently superior and have had a 400 year history of European brilliance that they brought to America. But also their white brilliance and their incredible architecture of America can be destroyed by 60,000 people from an African country just having 60,000 Somalis in town.
Interviewer / Host
Right, right.
Joy Reid
Destroys 400 years of brilliant European Americana. That white people are both superior and as fragile as an egg that if you drop it on the floor, spills out all its little yellow guts.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
So he's saying we had a 400 year head start on civilization, yet we're so fucked up, we're so weak, we're so bad at governing, we're so bad at self governance that just having 50,000 Mexicans in our community destroys everything.
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
Yeah. So it's like y' all had a 400 year head start. You should be as rich as Peter Thiel. You are what you say you are, Nick.
Interviewer / Host
Meanwhile, his ass is all you can eat. Chips and queso every taco Tuesday. Don't you know that's what pisses me off?
Joy Reid
And don't you live with your mama? Like, what are you talking about? You live with your mom. You live with your mom, Nick. And you're saying you're Superior. But you still live with your mom and you are, you are the fragile little bitch that cannot survive 50,000 Puerto Ricans. So, so. And then. But whereas Hassan Piker, who actually is brilliant, I really, we recently just interviewed him on the Joy Reid Show. Brilliant young man he is. You know, he went to Cuba. I think Cuba is much more autocratic than he does. That's probably where we kind of disagree. But his fundamental critique of Israel, which is the same fundamental critique Nick Fuentes is pretending to do about Israel, is true. Yeah, Israel is an apartheid state. That's not me saying that. That's the icj, the International Court of Justice said they've looked at it. The South Africans brought a case and they would know them some apartheid. And they said, we see apartheid there, as did Nelson Mandela. When he looked at what Israel was building in the 80s, he was like, this is apartheid. I know it when I see it because I came from it. And they are building an apartheid state. They're also a genocidal violent state that is building essentially what we say Iran is an ethno religious state where if you are a white Jewish person, you have more rights than a indigenous Palestinian. They have taken their indigenous and done what we've did to our indigenous here. They're wiping them out, stealing their land. You can get on a plane from Cleveland, land in Haifa tomorrow, get in a truck and go out to the west bank and put a gun to the head of any Palestinian farmer you want. And as long as you're Jewish, you get to have their land. You will have the IDF protecting you. You can kill them, you can rape, murder and steal, as long as you are the right religion and race in that country, even black Balasha, Jewish people are second class citizens. Palestinians whose families go back hundreds of years have almost no rights unless they live in Israel proper. If you're in the west bank, the occupied west bank, you have no rights and you almost now have no country. They've eaten up almost all the land. They are literally just stealing these people's land right in the open. And they've colonized, they've colonized the West Bank. They're now trying to colonize all of Gaza and Lebanon and parts of Syria. But by the way, one of the things that's interesting about Hassan Piker, I know this little earpiece is that his family comes from Turkey. His family comes from Turkey. Right from Thessaloniki, which is the part of that were the Thessalonians in the Bible. That's what they were talking about, the Thessalonians and that little part of, of, of, of, of Turkey is part of what Israel wants to eat up for its Greater Israel project. They want five countries. They want annex parts of five countries to build this Eretz Israel. That's the dream of people like Smotrich and Ben GVIR and Bibi. Netanyahu is willing to let them believe they can do it. They are literally eating up southern Lebanon. They are bombing entire villages and wiping them out. That is genocide. Yeah, they are a genocidal state. It's a violent genocidal state that for some reason we completely fund and allow them to do what they want, Democrats and Republicans alike. So the freak out by Democrats, by centrist Democrats who want Israel to be able to colonize the entire Middle east for whatever reason. I don't know why Joe Biden was for this. I don't know why Democrats don't give a shit about it. But it's wrong. We need to stop funding it. And even Nick Fuentes is right about that. And if even that fool can, can see it, they should see it too, because the base of both parties is there. Yep, the base of both parties agrees with this. And people are going to get lulled by a Nick Fuentes and lulled by a Tucker Carlson and a Candace Owens because they're saying it now.
Interviewer / Host
So last question, and this is I think at the crux of this whole thing. We are funding all of the war crimes, atrocities, murders, rapes, all of the stuff that you just mentioned. People in rural Oklahoma, rural Texas, urban areas are funding that. All right? And we're going to have a new breed of younger, fresher, smarter con artists come in that's going to deliver that the American public has done, funding war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu in that government. Both parties, for whatever reason, seem to see this pretty clearly. Maybe not the ruling classes, but the bases. How linked is what's happening there, the war crimes there? And us either corporate Democrats like Chuck Schumer dismissing it, saying he'll make sure they get all their funding and then maybe a white triple Trumper lady married to rich guy in suburban Georgia who's got three daughters, three daughters that are going to be having babies. How linked are the human rights of these issues? How much does that, once we cede some ground, how much does that leave us all vulnerable? Joy?
Joy Reid
100%. Because, you know, I think about the fact that many of our police departments send their officers to Israel to train with the idf. The IDF is, you know, I was all been trying to, I've always been trying to figure out for years, like, why is it that American politicians are so obsessed with supporting this country that spies on us? You know, if you ask intelligence professionals, they'll say, oh, Israel 100 spies on us. Like, they're the country that is most likely to bug our president, bug our politicians. You know, they sort of dog walk through a pack our elected officials to do things that are not in our interest or in their interest. They're certainly pursuing their own interests. Can't knock them for that. But they don't pursue our interests with us. Right. They don't listen to us, they don't listen to our presidents. Why are we so for them? Well, in some ways they are a sort of working experiment in autocracy and in a police state because they practice the police state against the Palestinians. And then that same violence comes right back here. So it's completely linked. Those things that are being done to Palestinians will eventually be done to black folks in Georgia. And once they get done with the black folks, they always get to the white folks too. We are the canary in the coal mine. But white Americans think, oh, that's them. No, it comes to you as well. You're always. Everyone's on the list, right? Women, people of color, Asian Americans, everybody.
Interviewer / Host
Even Mike Pence.
Joy Reid
Even Mike.
Interviewer / Host
Even a white Christian man, lynch him. Even a white Christian man. If you're not loyal to the script, even you can go down. Mike Pence, pet rabbit. I think about that rabbit home called his wife, mother.
Joy Reid
Yes, he did.
Interviewer / Host
They even wanted to hang his ass.
Joy Reid
That's exactly right.
Interviewer / Host
That's incredible.
Joy Reid
And that's.
Interviewer / Host
And then they elected the guy who provoked them to do it. Joy. It's crazy.
Joy Reid
It's crazy. And so we have to start, I think the quote unquote, America. First message, Democrats watch out. Because that is going to be very powerful for a lot of voters, right? Because they're going to say, why are we funding full health care for people in Israel and we don't have health care here? Why is my rural hospital closing? And they've got universal cradle to grave health care and free education that I'm funding. Why are my tax dollars going to war crimes? I don't want to pay for that. And I think the right message for a Democrat, a smart Democrat, is what Hasan Piker is saying. Let's stop spending money on a Cuban embargo. Let them live, let them do whatever they're doing. If you don't like their system of government, fine. Don't go over there, don't visit, leave them Alone. Let's bring our money back home. Let's repatriate our tax dollars. Let's make sure we're building hospitals here. Let's make sure that we have health care and child care and a care economy where we're taking care of ourselves. Maybe we don't need to build another 90 million dollar B2 bomber or whatever. Maybe we should use that money, I don't know, to build decent schools in my neighborhood. I think the message for Democrats ought to be we need to repatriate our money here. If you don't steal that America first message, somebody like Tucker is going to take it and run right to the White House with it.
Interviewer / Host
You're exactly right. And that's why I wanted her to pop that back up with Nick Fuentes with that messaging there. Because it's coming.
Joy Reid
Yes.
Interviewer / Host
And it will hit hard. And the Democrats cannot respond to this by saying, oh, it's complicated in a patronizing way to the electorate. You don't understand the history. What we do understand is the now.
Joy Reid
That's right.
Interviewer / Host
We understand exactly what's happening right now. And the Democrats need to say, and Graham Platner has been doing this. Instead of spending money to bomb schools, we need to build schools. Instead of spending money to bomb hospitals, we need to fund health care. And they need to say it simply. And they need to steal the America first thing immediately. Because what happens inevitably is these Republicans define us. And you remember that fight I got in with Rahm Emanuel defined us about the trans issue and he says we need to quit talking about the bathroom issues and start talking about the kitchen table issues. No, Ron, what we need to do is say, why is everybody in MAGA so obsessed with genitals? Why is Grindr always crashing whenever turning points together? Come on. Why is elon musk have 95 petri dish babies all over Twitter asking for child support yet y' all are racist.
Joy Reid
Come on.
Interviewer / Host
I mean, come on. They need to play offense and quit around with these people and allowing them to define us. But when I see that Nick Fuentes stuff with that America first, having lived in the, you know, homeland, the heartland of America, the buckle of the Bible belt, Oklahoma City, I know that message will hit hard. Yeah, I know it will. And that the N word drop Trump has primed them to take racism to the next level.
Joy Reid
Right.
Interviewer / Host
What Trump is incubating right now is that George W. Bush incubated Trump because George W. Bush, now, he paints, you know, pictures of immigrants and all this shit. But he was a homophobe really not an equal rights type guy at all. And Islamophobe George W. Bush. And then he's incub. Donald Trump is incubating that. Nick Fuentes, it's going to be a million times worse if the Democrats don't start playing off 100.
Joy Reid
The reality is you remember, so I worked in that 2004 campaign when I got out of news because I hated the Iraq war and I was like it, I'm going to try to get this guy out of office. So I did, you know, by myself single handedly in Florida. So I went and worked for America Coming Together and we were watching as they did 11 different state ballot initiatives to stop gay marriage. Remember, that's how he won. He was supposed to lose based on people's anger about the war. A war that, a war of choice, a war we didn't need to fight with Iraq for no reason. And he pivoted to anti gay marriage and that's how he won.
Interviewer / Host
Traditional family values, that's what they're good
Joy Reid
at is, is lying about what they believe.
Interviewer / Host
Yes. And I always just think like the Democrats need to say, when you hear the word traditional, that is bigotry, that is sexism. Because they're saying that if you're divorced, if you're two gay dads, two gay moms, that you're not traditional. If you're mixed race in their mind that is not traditional. They use this coded language. Now DEI is just the new N word.
Joy Reid
That's right.
Interviewer / Host
Or saying urban or urban is signaling that these cities are so dangerous and in their urban and cities now that's the new thing. But Nick, he's already unshackled. Yeah, Trump invited him to Mar a Lago, he dined with him and he feels 10 foot tall and bulletproof enough to continue in his message dropping the N word like that. And that is what is coming. If the Democrats, what are they doing? They're picking a fight with Hassan.
Joy Reid
With Hassan Piker, who's actually a great messenger. I mean think about it. The reason to take it back to where we were before, before. The reason that they're suppressing black votes is they can't win black voters. Right. Why can't they win black voters? It's not like black people, you know, have always been Democrats. Black people were actually Republicans all three times that black folks voted 7030 for FDR all three times they were still majority calling themselves Republicans. Black folks are just like, we're going to vote for whoever we think is the most progressive who can win what have Republicans done when it came to black voters? They actively said, off, off. They said, off, okay? They said, we don't want you, right? So Nixon said, southern strategy. And he was on the phone with Reagan calling Africans monkeys. And he made it very clear, southern strategy. We don't want your votes. Ronald Reagan launches his campaign in 1980, literally within, what, 15 years of Dr. King being murdered. He launches his campaign in Neshoba County, Mississippi, where Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney were killed. Huge bat signal to the far right. Huge bat signal to racist. And then he did the whole welfare queen lie when he took a story of a white woman who was stealing welfare and said it was a black woman. Completely made up the story, put a black woman in it instead. What did George Herbert Walker Bush do? He was supposed to be the good Bush. He said, if you don't vote for me, you vote for that Greek. They're gonna be black people crawling through your window, killing you. Remember that? Oh, yeah. His whole campaign was black. Black scare. This is what they do. And then they wonder why we don't vote for them. You know, with. With George W. Bush, he was giving us endless war, promising. You know, he's going there with the Project for the New American Century. We're like, we're disproportionately in the military. We don't want to fight your wars. And then going after gay people, as you said, they do hate campaigns, then wonder why we don't vote for them. Whereas Bill Clinton was like, hey, I play saxophone and I like black people. Come on and hang with me. We were like, okay, fine. He seems like the least racist of the two will take him. And then there was Obama and of course Biden, who was like, you know, what was it? Corn Pop? He's like, corn Pop was my friend. Corn Pop was his black guy. We were like, if corn pop ain't even real, we're going to go with that guy. You know what I mean? So we're going with the people who seem. Who seem like they don't hate us. And so the fact that that's what Republicans have done, they wonder why we won't vote for them Democrats. Problem is they think that means that we love Democrats. We don't. Black folk don't love Democrats. Black folk want to survive in America. And we're going to vote for the party that we think is going to help us survive and then do the least harm to us. We're harm reduction voters, which is what Hasan Piker called himself, a harm reduction Voter. So the reality is Democrats need to communicate how they're going to reduce the harm of what's being done to all Americans right now. Even MAGA Americans are being harmed economically. What can you do? One thing is you need to name the villain. Republicans are really good at naming the villain. That random trans kid you're never gonna meet, that's the villain. The random immigrant. Joy Reed. Right. Jennifer. Right. We're the villain. We're terrible. Terrible because we curse and we mean and we're not nice, right?
Interviewer / Host
Yeah.
Joy Reid
But the reality is. You know who the villains are? Billionaires.
Interviewer / Host
Oh, totally. Those are the parasites.
Joy Reid
They're parasites.
Interviewer / Host
Like, total parasites.
Joy Reid
Just name them. Say what's doing it. Say who's doing this to you? It is billionaires. It's now Trump is a billionaire. It's the Epstein class. Yeah. Epstein class is the villain. Name it. Democrats. It's not Palestinians. It's the Epstein class. Just name the villain. Define what you're going to do to reduce the harmony and stop being schmucks.
Interviewer / Host
Agree. My statement is all Democratic politicians need to say MAGA is an anti family, pro pedophilia death cult.
Joy Reid
Yes.
Interviewer / Host
All of their policies lead to that.
Joy Reid
All right.
Interviewer / Host
Joy Reid, we are so lucky to have you and to have your voice and to learn from all of your knowledge and your analysis, my friend. I love you so much.
Joy Reid
I love you right back. And there is not a thing you can do about it.
Interviewer / Host
Go follow Joy Reid. Support.
Joy Reid
Support.
Interviewer / Host
We support each other. And I want you to support my partners in independent media. The Joy Reid Show. Right here, baby. And she's got the. I've had it. It's a mug exchange. Cheers.
Joy Reid
Yes. Cheers.
Interviewer / Host
All right.
Joy Reid
Boom.
Interviewer / Host
Bye, guys.
VRBO Support Announcer
A vacation rental shouldn't come with surprises. It should come with Verbo Care and 24. 7 Life Support. If the hot tub's broken, that's a verbo care thing.
Interviewer / Host
If my teenager starts calling me Leslie,
VRBO Support Announcer
that's a family thing. Leslie. VRBO Care and 24. 7 Life Support. If you know you VRBO terms apply. See vrbo.com trust for details. A vacation rental should come with support, not surprises. That's why VRBO comes with a VRBoCare guarantee and 24. 7 life support from real people. So if something goes sideways, VRBoCare can help. If the host cancels verbocare.
Interviewer / Host
If the listing says heated pool, but there's actually no pool to heat, Definitely
VRBO Support Announcer
a verbo care thing.
Joy Reid
If.
Interviewer / Host
If my teenager starts calling me Leslie
VRBO Support Announcer
instead of mom, that's a family thing. Leslie.
Joy Reid
That makes sense.
Interviewer / Host
Sorry.
VRBO Support Announcer
Book with support, not surprises, verbo care and 247 life support. If you know you're VRBO terms apply. Seevirbo.com trust for details.
Hosts: Jennifer Welch & Angie "Pumps" Sullivan
Special Guest: Joy Reid (Host of The Joy Reid Show)
In this wide-ranging, candid, and frequently hilarious episode, Jennifer and Angie welcome Joy Reid to dissect the shifting landscape of American politics, focusing on the unraveling MAGA coalition, Trump's autocratic instincts, dysfunction on the right, the enduring failures of Democratic messaging, race and voter suppression, media narratives around Israel and Gaza, and the dangers of rising reactionary “America First” populism. All three share sharp opinions, memorable analogies, and blunt language—delivering cathartic, urgent commentary in the face of unsettling threats to democracy.
This episode spotlights the urgency for progressives to reclaim populist messaging, name the actual villains (billionaires and the "Epstein class"), end defensive politics, and build real intersectional solidarity. With biting humor, unfiltered truths, and strategic clarity, Jennifer, Angie, and Joy offer a bracing call to action for anyone anxious about the future of democracy.